Friday, July 24, 2009

Evaluating Online Sources

There are several websites posted below that you will evaluate. Choose one of the two strategies to evaluate the websites. Post your thoughts about the quality of the websites to this post. After posting your evaluation, read at least one evaluation written by your classmates and post comments responding to their evaluation.

Websites

Five Criteria For Evaluating Webpages

http://www.library.cornell.edu/olinuris/ref/webcrit.html

The Five W’s of Website Evaluation

http://kathyschrock.net/abceval/5ws.pdf

Evaluating Print vs. Internet Sources

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/553/04/

Reference Shelf: Evaluating Online Resources

http://edsitement.neh.gov/reference_shelf_evaluating.asp

Evaluating Internet Resources

http://eduscapes.com/tap/topic32.htm

16 comments:

  1. Darius,
    What an incredible resource for teachers! I only had time to look at ONE!
    Thank you for the invite.
    Julie

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  2. Teach,

    I can't access the third one on the list. It said, "Address not found."

    Wendy

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  3. I am a little suspicious of the "eduscapes" website. The authors say they have been teaching "a long time," and they mention where they taught, but their credentials are a bit vague in my opinion.

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  4. Evaluating EdSITEment
    Written by Elizabeth E. Kirk of the Milton S. Eisenhower Library at Johns Hopkins University -- obviously an expert since she's a librarian
    There's a title (Reference Shelf: Evaluating Online Resources) to tell you what the page's all about.
    It doesn't say when it was written, but I think it's up to date.
    The info comes from the National Endowment for the Humanities and from the librarian from Johns Hopkins.
    This info is cool because it's organized in a bulleted list.

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  5. The last site, Evaluating Internet Resources, is not as "professional-looking" as the other sites, yet it does provide some decent information in a format many of the students would find user-friendly. Most importantly, this site introduces Snopes, which is a great site to check all those pitiful email chain stories that people pass on and on out of guilt!

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  6. The Edsitement website is a cool discovery. I loved that it has a link to Thinkfinity and teaching resources. Our tax dollars at work.

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  7. Darius--

    Andy on The Office would love the first one, as it IS from Cornell. That being said, it is solid for accuracy (clear distinction between author/webmaster), solid for authority (it IS within Cornell), it doesn't have any bias, and it has strong citation. On the other hand, it could use updating, as it is over 10 years old.

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  8. Paulette, thinking something is cool and "evaluating" it are two different things. ;)

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  9. I noticed the same things Leigh Ann did about the "Evaluating Internet Resources" site (the same one I referenced earlier.) I didn't think it looked as professional as the other ones. Plus, when I clicked on a link, it looked like photos of their grandchildren.

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  10. Like in the BrainPOP clip we viewed, I would like to use a checklist to evaluate web-based resources. This would allow the researcher to quickly assess the usefulness of the site within the time-constraints of the class period. None of these listed above do this but could be easily adapted and modified.

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  11. I looked at the eduscapes website and I liked it. Granted some of the links were slow to come up or led you to online articles that were hard to read. They outlined their educational criteria and claim to be currently teaching at Indiana-Purdue U. I guess you could check to see if that was true. I liked the websites that they already had set up for teachers to use with their students to explore website authenticity. I will agree with Karen that they do give the impression of a anti-establishment bias that should be kept in mind.

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  12. This is good to think about.... from the Purdue site.


    Publication Process
    Print Sources: Traditional print sources go through an extensive publication process that includes editing and article review. The process has fact-checkers, multiple reviewers, and editors to ensure quality of publication.

    Internet Sources: Anyone with a computer and access to the Internet can publish a website or electronic document. Most web documents do not have editors, fact-checkers, or other types of reviewers.

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  13. Karen, you make a good point about the last site, Eduscapes (sorry, I gave the wrong title for it in my comment), but it does have some good information. I do agree, though, it is not nearly as respectable-looking as the others.

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  14. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  15. The Five Ws handout could be used in grades 3-5 as a guide. At this time, we just have a form for parents to sign giving permission to use the www.

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  16. Watson's for the Humanities: The 5 W's process was a good criteria to use because I was able to basically answer all the questions involving this site; and its designers, EdSitement, made the information transparent and easy to follow. I recommend the National Endowment for the Humanities site is legitimate.

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